BEYOND BOLTON
New York Post
Editorial
June 10, 2005
Another week has gone by, and Democrats continue to block a confirma tion vote on John Bolton, President Bush's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) has emerged as the Senate's lead obstructionist, saying that Democrats will not invoke cloture — end debate — until the administration shares National Security Agency documents that Bolton handled in his position as undersecretary of state.
Dodd declared, "This is now beyond Bolton. It is a question of whether or not the Senate should have a right to information pertaining to a nominee."
Dodd's partisan view seems to have won over Joe Biden, top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — who had seemed ready, over the weekend, to concede that the nomination would go forward and a confirmation vote held.
But, in a sense, Dodd is right.
This is "beyond Bolton."
It's about politics.
It's about whether Democrats can further stymie Bush's foreign-policy agenda.
What is strange, though, is that Democrats — plus the GOP apostate George "Tears of a Clown" Voinovich of Ohio — seem to believe that it is a political winner to go to the mat in, essentially, defending the "integrity" of the U.N. from a man of John Bolton's stature and talents.
Conversely, the House International Relations Committee on Wednesday OK'd legislation to cut U.S. dues payments in half unless the U.N. passes a wide range of budget, human rights and peacekeeping-mission reforms.
The reforms would oblige the U.N. to have officials sign financial-disclosure forms, overhaul its codes of conduct and establish an independent auditing board. Nations such as Sudan and Cuba would also be barred from serving on human-rights panels.
The House panel's action should come as no surprise.
Oil-for-Food is not the world body's only embarrassment. There are also the recent cases of U.N troops committing rapes while on peacekeeping missions — not to mention sexual harassment charges against high-ranking officials.
It is this record that Dodd & Co. are defending by preventing the president from having a forceful advocate for change and reform representing the America's interests.
John Bolton needs to be confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Now.
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